Slow Cooked Indian Curry in Aussie Camp Oven
In this post we show you how to cook a simple Indian Curry using an Aussie spun steel camp oven. Another really simple recipe that requires no cooking experience. We like to keep our camp cooking nice and simple, using ingredients that are easy to pack and store that can also be used in many other simple camp cooking meals.
Check out our Indian Curry in our Aussie camp oven recipe below.
The Gear We Use
This is the gear we use when cooking this Indian curry in our camp oven:
- 12 inch spun steel camp oven.
- Olive oil and paper towel to season your camp oven.
- Companion double gas burner in our Drifta trailer DOT373.
- Primus single stove gas burned when touring in 76 AUS.
- Chopping board and sharp knife.
- Oven gloves or fire resistant gloves to handle your camp oven.
Ingredients
- Half a jar of korma curry paste (we use Pataks)
- 1 x brown onion
- 1 – 2 cm cube of ginger root
- 1 x chilli
- 500 grams of diced chuck beef steak
- 1 x can of coconut milk
- Water
- Olive oil
- 2 x potatoes – one normal and one sweet
- 2 – 4 x carrots
All the ingredients can be stored dry out of the fridge except for the beef. We organise our meat before camping or touring. Buy in bulk and then weigh and separate for correct portion size. We also try and prep meat as well if required. So for this recipe we buy actual chuck steak in steaks and then weigh and dice before vacuum sealing. Pre-measuring and vacuum sealing allows you to freeze a lot of your meat if travelling for some time. If you forget to defrost the meat you can soak in hot water if water is not limited. Or remember to take out in the morning and let defrost during the day.
Method
Chop up the brown onion The onion doesn’t need to be chopped up too small. Then de-seed the chilli if you don’t want the curry to be too spicy, then chop finely. Also chop up a chunk of ginger (1-2 cm cube) as finely as you can.
Heat up some olive oil in the camp oven over a gas burner or over coals if you prefer. We find it easier to prep our camp oven meals using our gas burner as it’s near all the ingredients in either our trailer or Cruiser. Fry up the onion, chilli and ginger in the olive oil until the onions soften.
Now add at least half the jar of Korma curry paste depending on what portions your are cooking. Stir in the curry paste for a couple of minutes and then throw in the diced chuck steak. Brown off the steak and once browned, add the can of coconut milk and stir.
Let simmer while you chop the potatoes and carrots into approximately 3 cm pieces but whatever tickles your fancy.
Continue to stir the camp oven. Once curry paste looks to have mostly dissolved add the chopped veggies and stir.
Depending on how much liquid you have, you might want to add some water as this will be simmering on the coals for two hours. Try and make sure that you almost cover the beef and veggies, so add as much water as required to achieve this.
Stir one final time and then add the camp oven lid and get on the coals. You want more coals on the bottom of than top.
Put on a timer for 45 mins and then check and stir. You will need to check again and add more coals on top and bottom during the two hours. It should be nice and thick and the beef will be tender after two hours. If not yet thick or tender, cook for another 30 minutes.
You want to ensure the camp oven is simmering the whole time. So if this is your first attempt maybe check every 30 minutes or so. As this is a liquid dish you don’t have to worry about burning anything either.
Cooking for two hours on coals will ensure the chuck steak has enough time to get really tender. Don’t get impatient it’ll be worth the wait.
You can serve with garlic bread if you want or even get fancy and buy some naan bread and wrap in foil and heat up by fire for an hour or so. Cook the garlic bread the same way.
This will feed 4 men easily. For more people, adjust the ingredient portions as required.
This should cost you less than $10 and will put a smile on everyone’s face. Very simple to do, good ingredients for storage with only the beef needed to be stored in the fridge.
If you would like to see some of our other bush cooking recipes then check them out here.
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For any questions post a comment below or send us a message on Instagram. We hope you have enjoyed this recipe and method for cooking a slow cooked Indian curry in an Aussie camp oven.
Thanks for reading legends!
Recipe and method by Peter.
